


Home is Wherever I'm With You

by beautifullikesin



Category: Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018), symbrock - Fandom, veddie - Fandom
Genre: AU, Fluff, No Sex, No Smut, Non canon compliant, Other, Venom AU, Venom POV, alien exploration, rly cute, sometimes the biggest adventures are just trying to cross the street., symbrock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2019-09-13 11:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16891812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifullikesin/pseuds/beautifullikesin
Summary: What will one day be known as the Venom symbiote has escaped from Reed Richards' lab. Lost, alone, it seeks safety and a purpose in a hostile alien world.





	1. Lost

Nothing in the new world makes sense.

A jumble of shapes and textures and smells, a maze of blocks and shapes and artifacts I don’t recognize. Giant mechanical objects moving past me on lumbering, round legs. Looming cliffs gleaming with bright, glittering scales.

Tall spikes poke into the sky, some of them with lights at the end. Maybe one of the spikes will attack me. Maybe one of the round-legged things. Maybe one of the small objects that I crawl over and under and past, more spheres and blocks and spikes and squares with no discernable name or purpose.

I am afraid.

When I was with the _friend_ , I was not afraid, because this is his world and he knew everything in it. Whenever I was afraid, whenever I did not understand something, I could study his memories and learn what he knew, and then I was not afraid anymore.

He knew what was a threat and what was harmless. He knew who was a _criminal_ and who was an _innocent_. He knew what was _home_ and what was a _dangerous place_.

But now, the friend—who is not our friend anymore, I have to remind myself—the friend is gone. He is gone, and I am alone.

Lost.

Not only is he gone, he is gone because—and this is the part I cannot understand— _he didn’t want me_.

It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. The things inside of me and the things outside of me. They all jumble into one big, tangled mass of confusion.

With the friend, I could soar above the huge, scaly cliffs and make sense of where I was. But here, on the ground, all I can do is crawl helplessly through this enormous, teeming colony, a colony bigger than any I could have ever imagined.

I try not to think about him.

I must find shelter. I must be safe.

2.

Once, when we were _together_ , he took out a roundish, smooth, cold thing. He did something to the top of it that made it hiss, and then pressed it to our mouthparts. We drank a strange, sweet nectar that hurt, but didn’t hurt, and it was cold and sharp and good.  
I am hiding in a Safe Place I have made—a little hole in an empty cube—and near me are some shells of the thing he had. But they are all empty, and the nectar is all gone.

I am poking a tendril hopefully into one of the sodas when a voice catches my attention. My hearing is very good, so I hear every word even though it is far away.

“If you have lost your way, if you are without hope, it’s important to know that _you are not alone_. You _can_ take your life back and come experience the good news of Jesus Christ and His work on the cross,” says an alien voice. A “male”, I think.

“If you need help, if you are lonely, come join us in prayer at Our Lady of Saints this Sunday. For You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call you…”

I am interested. I need help, and I am lonely. I need a safe place that is better than this cube.

I watch and listen to the alien for a long time. It has small, bright things in its hands, which it tries to give to other aliens who pass. Some of the other aliens stand and talk to it. Most of them do not.

It occurs to me that this might be a trap—perhaps this alien is trying to lure the lonely and afraid into the mouth of some monster. Or perhaps it is a different sort of trap—one that will result in another glass prison, and _sound_ , and pain.

But by the time he stops speaking and begins to put his bright things away, I have made up my mind. I have nothing left to lose, and I have to do _something_. I will follow the alien to the _church_. Perhaps it is not a trap. Perhaps I will be safe there.

But for this journey, I cannot be alone. I need a host, and food. At the end of the passageway in which I am hidden, I hear clicks and rustles that are, for once, very familiar. The little clicks and rustles of small prey.

The bodies have almost no meat and many tiny bones. Not good. But good enough. I choose one lucky survivor to be my host. And when the alien with the colorful squares starts to walk away, we follow it.

3.

I hate my new host.

Its brain is tiny, and it only has one thought.

_RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!_

It is not helping me. I must be brave and calm now.

I saturate its brain with relaxant chemicals, and it helps greatly. I feel bad for the creature; it is tinier and more afraid of this world than I am. At least I can make decisions. Act on them. Following the alien is my only decision right now. It is reassuring to have some sort of plan.

The host’s fear is good, though, because it helps us stay hidden. We are a good team in that way. It knows to keeps to the shadows, to the tiny nooks and crannies. I help by flattening us out, making us long, thin, a moving shadow snaking its way through the debris.

The alien leads us to a structure that is not tall and scaled like the others. It is built from many smooth rocks—we do have rocks on my planet—and in the middle is one great, round, colorful eye.

We follow the alien into the dwelling. The inside is vast and quiet. There are objects like _chairs_ , but longer, arranged neatly all over the floor. The silence is wonderful. Through the thick walls of rocks, the horrible cacophony outside is finally, blessedly, muffled.

The alien meets another alien, and they speak to one another. Nothing they say is interesting. I am lucky that I can still understand their language. I learned it from the friend.

Finally, they leave.

It’s just us, in the great quiet cavern.

RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

I sigh. It is time to be alone.

I leave my host and it scurries away into the shadows. Perhaps it will meet another of its kind and make a new family. Perhaps I can eat the new family the next time I am hungry.

Or perhaps should I leave it alone. I _did_ take it far away from its nest, from its home.

It is difficult to be able to become your own prey, sometimes.


	2. Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some hardcore Pine going on here

4.

Time is different here. When there is a long period of sunlight, followed by a long period of darkness, that is called a “day”. For a few dark/light cycles I am able to stay comfortably in the _church_ and observe my surroundings. I like it, but I am unsure what to do next. And, truthfully, I am too miserable to do anything. So I simply wait to want something. To live, or to die. Whichever I decide is what I will do.

A few days have passed when something horrible happens.

It starts with a few aliens trickling into the dwelling. I watch them with interest; I am hidden and they are not threatening to me.

But then more of them come. And more. I smell their scents, a jumble of sweetness and salt and _information_ that assaults me.

And then, very rapidly it seems, the dwelling is full of aliens, chattering and talking to each other in their ugly language.

And then—there is a _noise_.

It is awful. Awful. A horrible crescendo unlike anything I have ever heard, a screeching chorus of screams blaring in disharmony. I crawl as far into the walls as I can, and it still assaults me. I am not in pain, but oh, the horror of this sound. It is simply beyond description, beyond anything a symbiote unfamiliar with this planet could understand.

And it _hurts_. It doesn’t cripple me, but it tears across the surface of my skin, grating it like sand rubbing into a wound. The only thing I’ve heard that is in any way similar were the engines of the ship that brought me here.

More things happen, there is talking, more ugly words that I am too tired and sore to bother to understand. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what they say, what they are. They are aliens, and I, who have always felt different and alone, am more different and more alone than I have ever been before.

When they slowly start to trickle out again, I lie in my hiding place, trembling, willing the memory of the Sound to go away.

But even though my body has not changed, I have changed.

I have almost decided.

5.

During the day when I should be sleeping, I think about the friend and puzzle over him again.

I still don’t understand.

Why didn’t he want me?

Why didn’t he want me?

I search my memory nodules and try to remember if I hurt him, perhaps, in some way I have not yet understood.

Perhaps, like the Sound, perhaps there is something about me that harmed him, that I am not aware of.

The aliens in the church did not seem to dislike the Sound, and I could not see anyone being tortured. They clearly were gathering to worship it in some way. Therefore, the Sound that, to me, is abhorrent, is acceptable or perhaps even pleasant to them.

Maybe something about my body which is harmless to me, was poisonous or painful to the friend, in the same way.

I wish he would have told me.

I wish I could have asked him.

I wish I hadn’t been so afraid.

I remember the emotions surging from him when he learned I was alive—horror, terror. I have never felt feelings like that from a host before except during battle. But these feelings were towards _me_!

The hosts on my planet varied in intelligence, from what a human would call an “animal” to those with intelligence that rivaled our own. Those hosts actively sought us out, invited us in. Made sure that their children bonded with us. They knew that we would help them survive the harsh winters, the blistering heat.

The friend…did not understand that. But it is too late to make him understand. If I even could have.

I think about him in the sky, think about flying together. Throwing out a line and then catching ourselves in a graceful arc. I remember the exhilaration that surged through us. The feeling of pure joy and freedom. That no matter what happened, no matter what danger lurked on the ground below, we could do _anything_.

I remember his shadow on the streets below, his reflection in the cliffs. Grace and agility and dexterity and strength. He moved like water, like fluid. Like _us_. Being inside him, it wasn’t even like _bonding_. We just—were. One being, one organism, different in thought, perhaps, but alike in movement.

We could have been so much more.

I think of his hands, delicate and strange, running over me soothingly.

He was beautiful. Beautiful.

6.

The days continue. The light/dark cycle that sometimes brings new aliens, sometimes not. I lie still in the darkness, watching, waiting for something to change. I do not want to go, and I do not want to stay. I do not want to move, I do not want to eat, I don’t want to go home and I don’t want to make a home here. I don’t want anything, and the only emotion in me powerful enough to count as an emotion is just that: don’t want. I Don’t Want, I Don’t Want, I am a being made up of darkness and sadness and Don’t Want.

Sleep is good, because sleep is almost like death but without the pain.

So I sleep.

And I am sleeping when he comes in.


	3. We Could Be Better

7. 

The alien is larger than those I have seen so far. Its head and shoulders tower above the statues around it. This means it is probably what they call a “male.”

 In all the other ways, however, he is similar to the other aliens. He has two sticklike limbs which he uses to propel himself forwards. He has no tail, no spikes, no horns, and no wings. There is just a little yellow fur on top of his head.

The skin covering his chest is brown, and the skin covering his legs is gray. His pack is a color which the aliens have no word for, because they cannot see it.

He sits directly in front of my hiding spot, which is why he first catches my attention.  

I do not know why I am so interested in him. He behaves like all the other aliens who come into this place. He sits on one of the chair-like things and lowers his head. He performs the small ritual which they all perform, that of bringing the front limbs forwards and pressing the “hands” together. He is silent.

He smells good.

He smells like salt.

His face, I notice, there is fluid emanating from his face. From the eyes.

Is this normal?

As I watch him, he trembles. Though the movement comes from a body so foreign, it makes me think of myself, shuddering after the Sound assaulted me.  
  
Then he does something that shocks me.

He reaches into his pack and pulls out a— _gun_. 

I know what this is. It is a weapon. A lethal one. I remember them well from my time with the friend, because they made him so alert and afraid.

Enemies pointed them at us, enemies who wanted to kill us. The friend knew the weapons could not kill us. He knew that they would only hurt us, and that we would eventually heal.

But he knew that they could kill other aliens. Innocents. That is why, when an enemy had them, he took them away very quickly.    

This alien is a _criminal_. He is here to kill someone.

Me? No, impossible.

He must, then, be waiting for more humans to come. Perhaps he will strike at the Worship of the Sound ceremony where there will be many humans. Perhaps—

He presses the gun to his head.

Things at once become very slow and very fast.

The gun will kill him.

 _He_ is the innocent he has come here to kill.

He will bleed, die, unless—

He makes a wretched sobbing noise. 

Pulls the trigger.

And finds that he can’t.

I have entwined myself around his wrist, his hands, taking control of every muscle fiber and sinew, paralyzing him completely from the elbow down.

He gasps, tries to jerk his arm back, but his muscles will not obey the commands of his brain.

Buried in his veins, I feel his pulse throb frantically all around me, fast and strong, forcing great quantities of adrenaline through his bloodstream. 

Adrenaline. Despite everything that has just happened, I find myself moving towards it hungrily. The rats were the last thing I ate, and it smells…exquisite. I sink deep, deeper into his veins, lapping up the chemical happily. As dire as the situation is, I can’t concentrate; the hot, heady smell of his blood is too good, too delicious.  

I feed happily, little pulses of animal contentment surging through me. And then another pleasant sensation hits me: I realize that, for the first time in weeks, I am in a _host_ , a warm, living, breathing host, right where I _need_ to be, where I belong.  

Oh, if feels so good. So right. To be cradled, protected, in flesh and blood and millions of tiny electric pulses that mean life… 

If I had a mouth, I would sigh in satisfaction. 

Yes.

Here. Here is good. Here is right.  

_God?_

A voice from outside of us. No, from inside of us. It is the host, who thinks I am some sort of deity.  

 _No,_ I say. _I am…_

I stop, because I do not have a name. Symbiotes take on the name of our hosts; we don’t have our own identity.

 _I am…a friend,_ I say. It’s true, I realize. In just a few brief moments, I have grown to care for this alien. Or at least, to pity him.

For who would want to take his own life?

Who, except…me.

 _Who are you?_ The host asks anxiously. _Did…did God send you?_

I have been here long enough to know that many of these aliens think that there is no other sentient life in the universe. They believe that other aliens are a myth. A frightening one.  

If I tell him the truth, he might panic.

Then again, if he panics, his brain will create more delicious adrenaline.

Torn, I hedge. _I am…from the stars,_ I say. _From the sky. Far away._

 _An angel,_ he whispers. Reverent.

As he speaks, his mind conjures an image. A white, glowing being, much like the other aliens of this planet, but with great, feathered wings. The image provokes a sensation of light, joy.

He _likes_ this image, I realize. If he thinks I am one of these creatures, he will let me live inside him, and I will be able to stay as I am, soothed and comfortable in his flesh—

 _Yes,_ I say. _Yes, an angel._

 _Sent to protect me…_  

 _Yes,_ I say again, ignoring a small stab of guilt.

What he doesn’t know, will not hurt him, I argue with myself.

He just tried to _kill_ himself.

At my words, his mood lifts, and he breathes a deep sigh of relief. He is _much_ larger than my previous host, and my whole body reverberates with the force of his lungs.

I feel something spark in him, something I recognize, something that makes me draw closer inside him.   

My host and I are very different. But we are thinking the same thing. 

_I don’t have to die._

_I don’t have to be alone._

_We could be better…_

_We could live._

_We could live._


	4. You Can Stay Here

Leaving the church, after all this time, feels surprisingly good. True, it was my haven, but it was also a place of sadness, and I am happy to see it fade into the distance.

The host walks away with wide, brisk steps, and every length feels better and better, taking me farther from the past and towards a possibly-better future.

Whatever happens, I dare to think hopefully, it cannot be worse than those terrible days I spent in that place. No, I must never do that again. I truly think that death would be better than living that way, paralyzed by misery.

I am too nervous to speak to my host again. If I speak too much, if he feels bothered or annoyed, he will reject me, too, and I will be back where I was.

If I say the wrong thing—if I do something wrong—

And anything could be wrong. I still do not know what I did wrong the last time.

And so I stay perfectly silent until the host reaches a small building and pulls open the “door”.

“Here we are,” he says, his deep voice booming around and underneath and through me. “Home sweet home.”

The floor…glitters.

It looks much like the place in the alleyway, the place with the cube and the rats. 

There are many, many objects littering the floor, things of “glass” and “metal” and “paper”, all words I learned from the friend. I smell food, some sweet and some sour. It is not unpleasant like the smells of the church; it doesn’t assault my senses in the same way. It smells mostly like _food_ , which makes me excited.

I look eagerly amongst the sparkling things for some rats. Perhaps he chooses to live here because these are good hunting grounds.

To my surprise, I sense a new emotion rising from my host. It is something I have only felt once before with the friend. It is called “shame.”  

From his thoughts, I register that this is not how humans like their dwellings to look. I have a sense that he is seeing it, truly seeing it, for the first time in a long time.

 _It’s…a bit of a mess,_ he says. _Not really what you want to show an angel._

 ** _Pretty,_** I offer. **_Lots of green. Blue._**  

 _I guess,_ he says with a small laugh. _It’s funny to see things through your eyes. You see everything differently._

 ** _Lots of rats?_** I ask politely.     

He laughs. _One or two. And plenty of roaches. But that changes now._

For the next few hours, he bustles around the small space, putting some objects in different places, and putting most of the objects in a shiny black bag. I am quiet, adjusting to the way my body is moved as he moves. He truly is much larger than the friend was, and I find I am able to spread out much more, fill more space.

I am careful not to control his movements at all; I must not frighten him. I simply watch and focus on the sensation of being transported by another body, moved back and forth across the floor, down the “stairs,” and back up again.

I focus on the objects he touches, learning their names and purposes from his mind. I feel much as I did when I first arrived to this planet—nervous and confused, but determined to learn. 

At last, my host lies down on a small “bed,” which creaks under his weight.

He heaves a big sigh, and again I am squeezed as his lungs inflate and deflate, a strange, but not unpleasant feeling.  

 _I really went through it, this time,_ he says somewhat sadly.

_I’m sorry you had to see all that. I’ve been…well, I’ve been a bit of a mess._

**_Is okay,_** I tell him. **_Angels…do not judge._**

He laughs quietly. _So, you’re an angel with a taste for rats, huh?_

I do not answer, because I have no idea if these angel creatures eat rats. Clearly, they don’t.

 _What are you?_ He asks gently.

**_Angel._ **

_It’s okay,_ he says. _You can tell me. I won’t be upset._  

 _You saw how I live,_ he adds. _I’m not…I don’t need everything to make sense. Not anymore, anyway._  

…

**_Angel._ **

He smiles. _Okay. You can tell me when you’re ready._

 _You can stay, you know. Back in the church, I felt how much it…I felt how much you need this. You can stay. I don’t have much to give…but I’ll take care of you. I mean, you_ saved _me. And this is all you want, right?_

I am silent, processing his words.

 _Mi casa es su casa,_ he says, and starts to fall asleep.

But I lie awake, still shocked by his words. 


	5. From the Morning

Waking up inside him is like waking up in a large, luxurious bed. I stretch myself out happily, pushing threads of myself deeper, down through his fingers and toes.

All around me are the familiar sounds of a body at work. The heart throbs; the blood swishes; the lungs suck in air; the mouth and nose push it out again. The organs rumble and gurgle ceaselessly; the joints snap and click; the muscles squelch and squeak with every movement. His organs push me around ever so slightly, and I rise and fall with the swell of his lungs. His body, like all bodies, is a constant, never-ending symphony of motion. 

As I watch him (or rather, _feel_ him), he stirs. With a grunt, he shifts himself out of bed, and then we are walking, quite far off the floor. He takes us to the kitchen, and pulls out a colorful box.

He pours the contents into a shallow container, and I smell something sweet.

 _Food!_ I emerge from his shoulder hungrily and sniff the air, wanting the food, yet hesitant to offend him.

“Oh, man,” he says, noticing me. “So that wasn’t a dream. That actually all happened.” 

I nudge his cheek briefly as confirmation, then return my attention to the food. 

“Alright,” he says. “You first, and then me, I guess.” I dive in happily and start to devour the crunchy little pellets. It is very different from anything I have ever tasted, but good.  

He watches me quietly as I eat. “You’re really something, aren’t you?”

I keep eating, a little nervous at being watched like this. 

“What are you, really? Some kind of eel…snake…demon? You don’t really feel like a punishment.” 

I look up from the container timidly. _Klyntar._

“What?” 

_I am Klyntar._

“Okay…and what is that, exactly?”

 _Us,_ I say, pulsing light chemicals through my membranes briefly.

“Yeah, I get that. But what _are_ you? Some kind of…animal? Are you magic? 

_No, not magic. Animal. Animal…from far away. From another planet._

He sits back, shocked. “Are you saying you’re an alien?”

_No. You are an alien. I am normal._

He laughs in surprise. “I guess you’ve got a point there.” 

The container is empty, so I drift towards the box that is still half-full of crunchy pellets.   

“You’re really hungry, huh?”

 _Yes,_ I say. _Have been alone. For a long time._

“You and me both, huh?” he says.

_Can I have. More pellets._

“It’s cereal, and yes.”

I sink headfirst into the box and resume eating the pellets. It has been a long, long time since I have eaten food. The chemicals in his body have healed me, but I need food, also. 

“Do you have a name?” 

I look up. Names are words which the aliens use to refer to each other. Each alien has its own word. But sometimes two aliens have the same word, so it is very confusing. 

I shake my head. _No name. Just Klyntar._

“Do you...should I give you one?” 

I shake my head again, a gesture the aliens use which means “no.” There is only one of me here. There is no need for something that will identify me. 

“Well, my name’s Eddie,” he says. “You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to, though.”

“Ed-die,” I say out loud, surprising him.   

“Yeah.”

“Ed-die. Is. Nice,” I say, wanting badly for him to like me. 

He laughs again. “Well, thank you. You seem nice yourself. Of course, maybe I’m being an idiot and you’re just going to lay a bunch of alien eggs in my stomach.”

 _I can do this. If you want._  

“Nah, I’m good.”

And that is our first morning together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping this up cause I don't have much more to say. The "take me" scene has been written by better authors than I, and I don't feel like there's a new or different way I want to tell the story. Thanks for all your feedback and comments. On to the next one :)


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